OAFVC Blog

Free Business Consulting for Starting or Expanding Your Food Business

For businesses looking to use our facility, staff at the Ontario Agri-Food Venture Centre (OAFVC) are available to discuss your external funding applications, product, packaging, and business development needs, self-study analysis, and to give general business advice. In conjunction with the Business Advisory Centre Northumberland, and our many other partners, you can get your business-services help for free.

3 Types of Businesses That Benefit From OAFVC

Producer/Market Vendor: You have great local support for your natural food business. You measure your success by the quality of your product and the volume sold, but also by your businesses’ reputation. With all your farmers’ market connections, word is really getting out about your product. You need to look for ways to expand your production, but you don’t have much capital. You’re not even sure you really understand what’s involved in larger-scale food processing, because you’ve only ever worked in your own kitchen by yourself.

Producer/Restaurant or Storefront Owner: You provide ready-made meals to customers at your restaurant or storefront. Some parts of the process are completed on-site (the finishing touches). But there are many steps you need to complete ahead of time. Many of your products can be made in large batches and dried or frozen until needed. Your schedule is packed at your business, which means you don’t have much time for food processing. You need a location where you can make a large amount of product in a small amount of time, a place that meets food safety standards and has several different types of processing equipment available so that you can prepare multiple products at once.

Farmer/Producer: You grow your own produce and only hire minimal help to pick and process. You need to keep up with the demand for your product while staying informed about the latest Canadian food safety standards. You measure your success by the quality of your product and your reputation with customers in the community. Sometimes it is challenging for you to find an affordable space to process larger orders, which makes it difficult to meet bigger volume requests when working with time constraints.

Access 7 Types of Food Business Consulting for Free

The OAFVC staff are always happy to answer your questions about:

External funding applications

Product development strategies

Packaging development strategies

Business development strategies

Networking

Your self-study analysis

General business

The Next Step to Your Food Business Success

Download this e-book now to read about how to avoid 3 common roadblocks to food business success.